I would never risk Gareth Bale's fitness, says Gary Speed

Thursday 24 March 2011 09:30 BST

Short stay: Gareth Bale was pulled out of training after this warm-up with the Welsh squad on Tuesday morning

Gary Speed said today he would never put Gareth Bale at risk of serious injury after revealing he decided to leave his star man out of Wales' Euro 2012 qualifier against England even though he only has a minor hamstring problem.

Without the player described by Fabio Capello as the "best left-winger in the world", Wales' chances of a shock victory at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday have dropped.

But Speed insists that after studying scan results, he never considered chancing Bale as he did not want to jeopardise Wales' relationship with Spurs by exacerbating the injury and possibly ending the player's season.

The Wales manager expects the 21-year-old to be okay within "10 days", meaning he should face Real Madrid in the first leg of Spurs' Champions League quarter-final in Spain on April 5.

"I'm no expert but I'm sure he will play next week," said Speed. "The most important thing is Gareth Bale. We're looking longer term with our relationship with Spurs and, hopefully, this will stand us in good stead.

"We want clubs to know we do right by the players. What we don't want is for him to break down. It's a huge game but we didn't want to risk putting him out for the rest of the season.

"He will stay and get treatment here, while we keep communicating with Tottenham. He wants to watch the game anyway so it is better he stays here rather than be in a car for hours. The next three and a half years are more important than the next three and a half days."

Bale has only just returned to action after six weeks out with a back problem and Speed had hoped to use the player's speed against England's vulnerable right-back Glen Johnson.

"It is a big blow," said the boss. "Any team in the world would miss Bale but between now and the next few years we are going to lose players and Wales have to cope if we want to achieve anything. If we're going to win it's not down to one player, it's the team."

The inquest into how Bale suffered the injury is under way with the Welsh FA claiming he first sustained the problem a week ago while training with Spurs, yet still went on to play all of Saturday's match against West Ham.

A statement on the Welsh FA website said: "He felt tight last week during training with his club. After playing 90 minutes on Saturday he felt some muscle tightness. Initially, this was expected to be muscle soreness after playing his first game [after injury].

"On joining up with the Welsh squad he was kept off his feet in training for two days to recover.

"As he still felt tight in the warm-up on Tuesday, Gareth was pulled out of the session. He did not train at all on Wednesday and was sent for a scan. The scan revealed that Gareth Bale picked up his injury last week."

However, sources at White Hart Lane contradict the Welsh claims and insist Bale did not have a problem when he faced the Hammers.

Amid the conflicting reports from club and country, Speed sought to act as a peacemaker and said: "You don't put any blame on Spurs at all. He played 90 minutes on Saturday and he got through 90 minutes. If we hadn't been so thorough he may have kept on training."

Earlier, assistant manager Raymond Verheijen had added to the mystery by appearing to blame Spurs for the Bale injury on Twitter.

"The incompetent amateurs struck again!" he tweeted. "Let's move on now with our preparations for the England game. Thankfully, football is a team sport and not an individual sport."

He later clarified his statement, insisting he was talking about the media for reporting the story incorrectly. He added: "Just spoken with people of Spurs as they thought 'incompetent amateurs' had something to do with them. Promised them to put it on Twitter. Incompetent amateurs are the people who put in the news that Gareth Bale got injured in training with Wales while he did not train at all.

"The 'breaking news' this morning about Gareth Bale's hamstring injury made us look like a bunch of amateurs. We had to protect ourselves."

Speed tried to clear up the Twitter controversy at his press conference.

"There was a bit of confusion there but it was about what was reported and it wasn't correct," he said. "In no way did it refer to Tottenham. I understand how it could be portrayed. The fact it was reported he did his hamstring yesterday when he didn't train was the incompetent bit."